February 8th, 2019

Issue 10

Pashley Down School Newsletter

Upcoming

Events Confident & competent

children Workshop PPP

Tue 12th Feb

6.00 - 8.00pm

Last Day of Term 3

Fri 15th Feb

First Day of Term 4

Mon 25th Feb

Parent teacher

consultation ( all classes

except Woodpeckers)

Tue 5th March

3.30-6.30pm

Wed 6th March

3.30-6.30pm

Value of the term: Equality

EYFS News

In EYFS we are continuing our

storytell ing adventures. The

children are enjoying exploring a

range of traditional tales and the

inspirational visit from our storyteller

means the children are

becoming storytellers in their own

right. We have been busy learning

more digraphs and trigraphs in

phonics (very grown up!) and we

are now

moving on

to phase 4

where the

children will

focus on us-

ing their

phonic skills

to blend and

segment to

s u p p o r t

reading and

writing. We will also be focusing on

reading and spelling tricky words

before learning any new sounds.

The children are really looking for-

ward to our upcoming library visit

and seeing you at the Golden Mile drop ins on the 11th February

for Rabbits, 13th February for

Squirrels and 14th February for

Hedgehogs.

Year 1 News Year 1 have been exploring “The

Snail and the Whale”

a n d i m a g i n i n g

themselves as the

snail on their first

exciting adventure.

They have explored adjectives,

verbs, alliteration and writing in

first person to create a fictional

diary entry. In maths they have

been exploring subtraction with

counters, as a part, part whole

picture, as an equation and then

c o m p a r i n g s u b t r a c t i o n

equations. In PE they have been

improving their listening and

team bui lding ski l ls with

p l a y g r o u n d g a m e s . I n

Geography and History they

have been learning about the

Eastbourne Bandstand, what

Victorians used it for, what we

use it for and learning a song to

perform on their own bandstand

in class. ell, and Year 1 have

Year 2 News

After a very successful week making

bird feeders, learning about the

features of birds and taking part in

the big schools' birdwatch, this week

the children have been learning all

about food chains and how plants

and animals depend on each other

for their survival. All the children have

become journalists this week and are

writing newspaper reports about the

Shackleton and his expedition to

Antarctica. The children have really

been challenged in maths this week learning about division.

Eco Warriors Eco Warriors met on Wednesday

to discuss many subjects, one of

which was on how to get the

whole school involved in Waste

Week this year. They all voted to

build a bottle greenhouse on the

allotment out of 2L plastic drinks

bottles.

Please could you start sending

any, especially any coloured

bottles to your class to support

this amazing projects (washed

with label removed!) We thank

you for your support and look

forward to reducing waste

together! d Year 1 have been ex-ploring . .

Dogs in Pashley Woodlands A very friendly dog has been

seen in our Pashley Wood-

lands. Although no harm was

caused, we have spoken to

the children about what to do

if this happens again. The message we have

given them is to Stay Quiet, Stay Calm, Stay

Still to enable adults to give instructions and

deal with the situation. If you or someone you

know walks their dogs close to Pashley Wood-

lands, please be aware that there are badger

holes around the fence that dogs can easily

wriggle through if they are off the lead. It is im-

portant we don’t have dogs entering our

woodlands in the week or at the weekend for

health and safety reasons.

Page 2 of 3 School Newsletter

Staff Car Park

Thank you to the Earlybird, Ladybird and sports club

parents and carers who do not use the car park. We

really appreciate your understanding that parking

here is not feasible as staff need to access the car

park at all times. This is especially important at the

beginning and end of the day when there are lots

of parents and children walking to and from the

school. We also ask not to use the staff car park as a

turning point as it can be dangerous when children

and parents are leaving Earlybirds and Ladybirds

via the vehicle gate after school. Thank you for your

understanding, we do appreciate it!

Librarians Pashley Librarians met on Thursday to talk about

World Book Week and to discuss how the class

and school libraries are going.

Congratulations to our new Librarians who joined

our team today. Eva and Oscar S from Hedgehogs, Thomas and Kenzi from Rabbits and

Olive and Theo from Squirrels. These children

were voted by their classmates to be in charge of

new developments around the school related to

books. New Librarians will be voted in for KS1 too

as we say thank you to the current members who

have served for a year now. Thank you for

helping us look after and love our books at

Pashley!

The Big Schools Bird Watch

It was “The Big Schools Bird Watch” last week

and Year 2 Pashley children took part in the

exciting survey. They made 90 birdfeeders and

hung them in our woodlands. They then

wrapped themselves up warm, put on their

boots and braved the cold weather to get

outside! The children were given a clipboard

before setting off to work recording the species

of birds and how many of each they could

see. Owls class hung some of their feeders

outside their classroom and were incredibly

lucky (and excited!) to watch a Robin feeding.

This survey takes place in schools all across the

UK and helps the RSPB to build up a picture of

the state of bird populations in the UK. The

children love getting close to nature and

spending time learning about local wildlife.

EYFS Plea

If you have any old wallpaper rolls

at home please could you donate

it to the school. Many thanks!

Attendance Well done to Squirrels Class for having the highest attendance over the last fortnight!

The whole school attendance for this year so far is 96.4%

Last fortnight’s attendance: 94.8%

Squirrels– 93.2%

Rabbits– 90.1%

Hedgehogs– 95.9%

Moles – 95.1%

Badgers – 98.1%

Foxes – 96.9%

Woodpeckers– 93.6%

Robins– 96.8%

Owls – 93.3%

We publish the weekly attendance figure for each class using a colour coded ‘traffic light’ system:

100% - gold

96.5 to 99.9% - green

95 to 96.4% - amber

Less than 94.9% - red

Page 3 of 3 School Newsletter

ATTENDANCE

Every Day and Every

Minute Counts! At Pashley Down School we have high

expectations of attendance and as we are

continuing to focus on attendance and

punctuality, we are writing to remind you that we

expect children’s attendance to be at 96%,

which is in line with the national government

expectations for every school.

Currently, in the last fortnight, our whole school

attendance slipped below national expecta-

tions. We know we’ve had a bought of sickness

over the past week but now this seems to have

passed will be working hard, with your support, to

ensure we hit this important mark again as soon

as we can!

THANK YOU SO MUCH to those families who have

been working hard to ensure children’s punctu-

ality and attendance is high. THANK YOU for get-

ting these important habits established early on

in your child’s life as it will make a difference in

their future. We really do appreciate that you

tackle the traffic and weather conditions.

Getting to school on time so that children can

begin their learning on time is really important.

Other children’s learning is also affected by late

comers. There is a link between attendance and

achievement and therefore it is very important

that your child attends school every day unless

there are exceptional circumstances.

We ask you to phone or email each day if your

child is absent. In the rare case where your child

is off for more than 3 days, please provide us

with an appointment card / pharmacy label etc.

to corroborate illness. This is a statutory

requirement. Thank you!

Here is further NHS guidance if you think your

child is unwell and you are not certain if they

should miss school or not. Not every minor

health illness means a child should need a day

off.

Punctuality Matters too!

Missed minutes = missed learning

= missed opportunities!

As a school, we are aware lateness can

severely affect achievement. It is so important

that children are in school on time everyday.

School starts at 8:45am. Between 8:45 and

9:00am children use this valuable learning time

to practise their handwriting, change their

reading books, etc. Children are marked as

late if they arrive after 9.00 am.

Facebook Reminder Just a kindly reminder not to put

photos of children taken on school

premises on any kind of social

media. Thank you!